A US-led assault on Iraq will have unpredictable and possibly profound effects on Iraqi society. Moreover, those effects will vary with the objectives and strategy adopted by the US and its allies as well as by the pace and scope of the collapse of Iraqi resistance. Further, the reach of Washingtonαs post-war objectives has not yet been settled. Given these multiple sources of uncertainty, understanding the relationship between Iraqi society and the Iraqi state after three decades of Baαath rule is all the more crucial to the success of post-war efforts to reconstruct the country and reconstitute its political system. Yet that relationship is poorly understood in the West. The Iraq of today cannot easily be mapped on to a neat diagramme of sect, tribe, or party. The rentier structure of the state economy, the regimeαs manipulation of group identity to control the population, the emergence of a shadow state that distributes public goods to advance regime interests, and pervasive violence have transformed Iraqαs socio-political landscape into dangerous and unfamiliar ground for intervention. These essays delineate the options now being debated in Washington and provide up-to-date assessments of how Iraqi state and society will respond to the impact of war and the removal of a deeply-rooted authoritarian regime.

Adelphi Paper 354.

Introduction--Ch. 1 America's War on Iraq: Myths and Opportunities by Judith S. Yaphe--Ch. 2 A Possible US-Led Campaign Against Iraq: Key Facotrs and an Assessment by David Ochmanek--Ch. 3 Cake walk, Coup or Urban Warfare: the Battle for Iraq by Toby Dodge--Ch. 4 A Few Days After: State and Society in a Post-Saddam Iraq by Isam al Khafaji--Ch. 5 Saddam's Power Structure: the Tikritis Before, During and After the War--Ch 6 The Iraqi Army and Anti-Army: Some Reflections on the Role of Military by Faleh A. Jabar--Ch. 7 The Kurdigh Dilemma: The Golden Era Threatened by Gareth R.V. Stansfield--Ch. 8 Economy and Society in Iraqi Kurdistan: Fragile Institutions and Enduring Trends by Michiel Leezenbert--Ch. 9 Clerics, Tribes, Ideologues and Urban Dwellers in the South of Iraq: the Potential for Rebellion by Faleh A. Jabar.